Machines, such as, autonomous or semi-autonomous machines, are becoming increasingly desirable for performing operations at a worksite, such as mining, earthmoving, etc. In some instances, a remotely located operator may control the operations of the semi-autonomous machines. In other instances, the autonomous machines may operate with human control or intervention, except upon the occurrence of some predefined events. One example of such autonomous or semi-autonomous machines is a dozer operating at a mining worksite to move earth material.
A mining worksite may include one or more terrain features, such as high walls, pit regions, low walls, etc. which may develop over a period of time. Detection of such terrain features and controlling operations of the machine based on these terrain features is an important aspect for operating the machine at the worksites. For example, during a dozing operation at a mining worksite, the dozer may be required to push earth material into a pit region. In such an operation, it is important to detect the pit region to know where to deposit the earth material and to detect a low wall at the end of the pit region to know when to end the dozing operation. A low wall may be an incline having a steep positive slope which may be encountered by the machine after the pit region is filed with the earth material. Additionally, without detection of such low wall, the machine may continue to move towards the low wall and may end up getting stuck at the low wall.
Chinese Patent No. 104763429 (hereinafter referred to as the '429 patent) relates to a method and an apparatus of adjusting opencast coal mine production stripping ratio. The method obtains an advanced area, in which the natural stripping ratio is intensively changed in an advancing direction of an original mining pit; performs grooving and deepening in the advanced area to form an advanced stripping pit, wherein a minimum earth surface distance between the advanced stripping pit and the original mining pit is calculated according to a preset distance calculating formula; and performs coal mining in a manner of synchronization advancing and deepening of the original mining pit and the advanced stripping pit.